Condor’s Rule Over The WEAK: Picks

Picks in ultimate are not allowed, primarily for player safety (It keeps that big guy from running over that small girl to get to a disc).

The following conditions have to exist for a pick to be called:

An offensive player’s movement (cut) causes a defensive player’s path to be obstructed (intentionally or unintentionally) by a third player. To clarify, the “third player” can be either an offensive or defensive player (including the thrower or the mark). Additionally, the third player’s movement may cause the obstruction (Jim is guarding Frank and Charlie runs between them causing Jim’s path to be obstructed).

The defensive player is less than 3 meters (10 feet) from the offensive player.

If these conditions are met the defensive player whose path is obstructed may call a pick. A pick is called by saying “Pick” loudly. A player on offense can not call a pick.

When a pick is called play stops when the thrower acknowledges the call. If the pass is in the air, play continues until the disc is caught and then play stops. If the pass results in a turnover, the turnover stands and play continues normally.

Once play has stopped, the defensive player must determine if the pick affected the play. As a general rule of thumb if the person you were guarding caught the disc, the play was affected. If the player you were guarding was not the player who caught the disc, the play was not affected.

If the play was affected, the disc is returned to the thrower, otherwise the disc remains where it is.

At this point the defensive player is allowed to regain the relative position to the offensive player they had at the time of the pick. This means if Jim was 6 feet behind Frank at the time of the pick, Jim will move to 6 feet behind Frank before play restarts.